“Mother nature is telling us every night on the TV news now is like a nature hike through the book of Revelation,” Gore said on Fox News Sunday on June 4.
Seventy percent of Florida is in drought today…” Gore correctly cited a drought figure for Florida from the United States Drought Monitor, a weekly map published on Thursdays showing drought conditions.
The last time the drought monitor showed Florida’s area of drought as high as 71 percent was February 2013.
During two weeks in April 2012, 99.96 percent of Florida was in a drought.
Florida’s dry season normally runs from about November through May but a period of drought can run into summer, said Victor Murphy, climate service program manager for NOAA’s National Weather Service-Southern Region.
“Our current drought is no worse or more prolonged than any other drought we go through periodically.” This year the Florida Peninsula only received half of its normal rainfall during the dry season, leading to the most active wildfire season since 2011.
“There is an increasing temperature trend, and warmer temperatures lead to greater evapotranspiration rates, which can exacerbate these periods of drought,” Zierden said.
While Gore’s numerical statement about the drought is correct, David Nolan, who chairs the University of Miami’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, cautioned against pointing to any particular weather event as proof of climate change.
“What matters most is global average temperature, because that drives sea level rise, which eventually will be the biggest problem.” Our ruling Gore correctly cited the United States Drought Monitor which showed that 71.66 percent of Florida was experiencing a drought for the week ending May 30 (and 76.4 percent this week).
“70 percent of Florida is in drought today.” — Al Gore on Sunday, June 4th, 2017 in an interview on Fox News Sunday